


Before the Dawn

by athena_crikey



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-20
Updated: 2011-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-26 07:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vetinari wakes up. Missing scene from The Truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before the Dawn

There’s a lot of paperwork to get through in the Watch these days. People say success generates success, but Vimes has come to realise that what success breeds, mostly, is a brood of mechanisms to ensure potential failure. Possibly this is Vetinari’s way of keeping the Watch from trying to fly before it has learned to walk.* Matters aren’t helped by the fact that coppers have an ingrained instinct to push responsibility upwards; it’s an age-old protective mechanism to ensure that when the bricks start flying, someone is standing in front of you. Ultimately most of the paperwork in the Watch ends up on Vimes’ desk, where it sits awaiting his signature or – nearly as likely – eventual decomposition.

*Or, in the case of some of its members, lurch, trot, sidle or otherwise self-propel in a general forwards direction.

It’s for this reason that, when Igor calls up to say he predicts his lordship may regain consciousness sometime this morning, Vimes picks up a stack of yellowing papers and pen to take with him down to the cells.

Vetinari has been unconscious since he was discovered in the Palace stables nearly 48 hours ago now. Igor doesn’t seem overly concerned by this – although he has started to talk about reassembling the lightning rod – so Vimes isn’t either. He knows the exhaustion duty can bring, although sleep was never the escape he chose.

“Ah, Igor,” he says, when he hits the bottom of the stone stairs. “How is his lordship?” The Watch’s resident physician/biologist/cook* looks up, a movement that often takes the unacquainted by surprise.

*Igor’s grasp of the dividing line between the point at which an animal transforms from an animal into a meal started out considerable ahead of the general populous’, and since then has only continued to advance. His current effort, instant butter, has as-of-yet resulted only in some very constipated-looking cows.

“Still sleeping, thur. No trouble at all. But his heartbeat and breathing are strengthening. He thould wake up soon.”

“Good.” He takes a pair of wooden chairs from Igor’s workshop and sets them up in the cell, one for him and one for his stack of papers. Unlike young de Worde he isn’t fool enough to lick his pen, but he does give it a shake before beginning to sum up the monthly petty cash. The ink still comes out in blobs.

Vimes spent several worrisome hours with a sleeping Vetinari several years ago during the whole arsenic candle incident, and while mostly what he remembers from that time is wracking his mind for ways someone could insinuate arsenic into dust motes, he does have a vague recollection of watching the Patrician in his sickly slumber. Vetinari had seemed closer to human then, pale and waxy and sweating faintly – he had even breathed audibly. Here on the hard cell bed – admittedly softened with a lumpy mattress from one of the upstairs rooms – he lies still and lifeless as the granite carvings that cover some of the tombs in the city’s more upscale cemeteries. The woollen blanket has even been pulled to plainly outline his sparse form in similar style to that found in many noble crypts, from the rise of his feet to the flat plane of his shoulders. Igor, despite having branched out into a more modern outlook, is still rooted in the old Gothic tradition.

The petty cash docket comes out two dollars and fifty pence short, and he signs it off and moves on to the traffic calming budget with some trepidation. Only three lines into poor spelling and even poorer bookkeeping, Vimes finds his mind wandering.

In some ways, things are better this time around. Vetinari isn’t veering between life and death with the city slaloming in his wake like a cart behind a staggering horse. The Guilds are treating the Watch as an opponent rather than a patsy. And he will be getting the evidence to collar the bastards behind this, if he can keep de Worde alive long enough. On the other hand, character assassination can be just as fatal as the crossbow and bloody dagger kind, and they still haven’t prevented it. And, while they are reluctantly consulting with him, the Guilds already have the next Patrician all lined up and blessed. _And,_ worst of all, there’s that idiot and his paper of news. De Worde has a very special – and quite possibly very fatal – ability to make everything he touches ten times harder than it would otherwise be.

Vimes pinches his nose, and reluctantly focuses his attention back on Colon’s confused documentation of the traffic calming debits and credits for the past month. It may be time to assign a different officer to record-keep for the division. Even a troll would be an improvement: they can successfully make it to many-many-lots ten times out of ten, whereas Colon gets lost around the point he runs out of fingers on his non-pencil-holding hand.

Vimes is making a note to himself to that effect when a movement in his peripheral vision catches his eye. He looks up from the paper on his lap, just as Vetinari’s eyes slide slowly open. The Patrician stares at the ceiling without moving for several heartbeats and then, as Vimes turns to speak to him, snaps his arm out snake-quick to grasp Vimes’ nearer wrist before it approaches him. Vetinari turns sharply, and Vimes sees his eyes are focused with a startling intensity. Recognizing Vimes, he blinks and releases his arm slowly, drawing back into the bunk.

“Vimes.”

“Yes, sir. You’re in the cells in Pseudopolis Station.”

“I see.” He raises himself onto one elbow and reaches back with the other hand to feel the back of his head in one clean, clinical gesture.

“You hit your head, sir,” says Vimes, neutrally.

“And this resulted in my incarceration?” Vetinari sits up smoothly, as if he had only lain down just a moment ago. He pushes the blanket off, eyebrows furrowing slightly at the sight of his stocking feet.

“You’ve been here for two days, sir. You were found unconscious in the Palace under … suspicious circumstances.”

Vetinari turns to face him, swinging his legs down off the bed and resting his feet on the cold stone, without any apparent discomfort. “What circumstances would those be?”

“I would prefer to have your own recollection first, sir,” replies Vimes, stone-faced.

“Am I under arrest, Commander?”

Vimes sighs. “Officially, I’m afraid so, sir.”

Vetinari raises an eyebrow. “Only officially?”

“We are currently pursuing more probable suspects in the crimes of which you are accused. However, until they’re apprehended or new evidence comes to light, you’re the prime suspect. And this new paper of news spreading the story around hasn’t helped much,” he adds, accusingly. It was Vetinari who let the fool continue, let him have his way and open the door to moving type. But it will be Vimes who has to clean up the mess if it all goes splat.

“And what story is that, Vimes?”

“Could I have your recollection first, sir? Everything you remember, before you hit your head?”

Vetinari gives Vimes a long look, while Vimes stares straight at the wall behind him. Finally, he laces his fingers together over his knees and leans back. “Very well.” His eyes move to examine the bleak furnishings of the station’s best cell. When he speaks, it’s with the dry disinterest of a professor reciting facts. “I rose early. I breakfasted. I took a brief walk in the gardens. I returned to my office.” He pauses, apparently reading the graffiti on the far wall. “I asked Drumknott to bring the morning paper. After that… things become rather mixed. I believe I may have had cause to draw a weapon.” He glances down at his hand, as if expecting to see some sign of it there.

Vimes doesn’t blink at this news – a drawer of daggers was found open on Vetinari’s desk, and the one in Drumknott’s shoulder matched the corresponding empty place. “Anything more, sir?”

“Cold,” says Vetinari, in a quiet, thoughtful voice. But when Vimes reacts, he shakes his head and looks up. “No, Commander. Doubtless that was a result of the concussion.”

“Well, it could have been that, sir. Or being found in the stables beside a horse loaded with 70,000 dollars in coin.”

Despite his small glance of surprise, the calculation only takes Vetinari an instant. “600 pounds is not an inconsiderable weight, Commander. I am buoyed by your opinion of my physical prowess.”

“Could be, sir,” says Vimes, flatly. And then, a shade less harsh, “We also found your secretary Mr. Drumknott upstairs, suffering from a blow to the head and a stab wound. The knife came out of your desk.”

At this news Vetinari’s reaction is more apparent – his expression shifts from his usual mild curiosity to a much harder demand. “Will he recover?”

“Yes, sir. Igor saw to him. He’s still here – we didn’t want to let him out in case he was a target.” Vimes barely keeps the “as well” from the end of the sentence. “It was a nasty wound in his shoulder, but he’s much better already. And luckily Angua was around when he was brought in, so he’ll be leaving with just the arms he came in with.” Vimes pauses for a moment, and then takes the plunge. “I should add that there was another potential casualty of the attack. Your dog is missing.”

Before Angua, it would never have occurred to Vimes to label a dog as a casualty. A werewolf in the Watch has opened some doors in the world of witnesses, but it’s also opened a few in that of perception. Vimes is naturally kind to animals, but he was never the type to treat them as people. At least not until he found that, through the right interpreter, many of them are more intelligent than some humans he’s known.

Vetinari gives a very small frown, but Vimes recognizes it for what it is: the tiny tip of an iceberg of anger.

“You have a reason to believe he isn’t simply lost?”

“No. Someone tried to kill him, and they’re still trying. Whoever finds him first has the crucial witness to the whole crime.”

“I take it then, Commander, that the Watch is doing its utmost to locate him.”

“Yes, sir.” _Unfortunately, so’s the rest of the city_ , thinks Vimes, sourly. But he feels on thin ice as it is with the dog, and keeps it to himself. Vetinari nods coldly.

“Very well. And the city?”

Vimes stares at the wall, eyes glazing over the badly spelt graffiti while familiar cogs turn in his mind. Vetinari’s terrier, they call him, but it isn’t accurate. He’s the Patrician’s terrier, and the Patrician just happens to be Vetinari. Vimes’ loyalty is to the city, not a man. But this man built the city, and without him it will fall. Ankh-Morpork has grown from the fetid, stinking, corrupt infant it was to a more clean-cut and semi-literate youth, but it still has a long way to go before it will be ready to be released out into capable adulthood. If the Guilds take over now, they could be back on barricades in a decade. And Vimes has had more than enough barricades to last a lifetime.

It’s no new quandary, but feeling it gives him a tiny scrap of comfort: he’s still just a plain copper who knows the difference between right and wrong. He has nightmares about the day he doesn’t feel it anymore.

“The city, Commander?” repeats Vetinari. Vimes looks down from the wall and, meeting the Patrician’s gaze, answers.

“The Guilds will be swearing in Tuttle Scope early tomorrow morning.”

Vetinari gives an exaggerated blink. “My word. A new patrician sworn in seventy-two hours after my arrest for treason, theft, breach of trust, and attempted murder. We have achieved a new historic record. I cannot recall the seat sitting vacant for longer than six hours, even after the unexpected departure of Lord Gittlespeck, whose only crime was, sadly, that of unintended indecent exposure.* I hope the Watch haven’t been upsetting people, Sir Samuel?”

*It is for this reason that the requirement of the Patrician to wear a pair of drawers or a hem-line of no less than mid-shin length, especially on blustery days at children’s fairs, was written into the Patrician’s Private Obligations. Other obligations included not eating anything whose name contains the letter R, always opening doors with the left hand, and only wearing buttons made of pure metals. The Patricians’ Private Obligations, intended to be a set of rules to govern the behaviour of future Patricians, were created by Floundering Lord Fleetrope, who sadly never entirely grasped the concept of absolute dictator. They were, of course, immediately burned by Perverse Lord Punt upon his succession to the patricianship.

“Couldn’t say, sir. Haven’t noticed much more shouting than usual. Mind you, I have been a bit deaf since the lads tried to start up their band again the other night and put Detritus on the drums.”

“And your investigation?”

“Is in hand, sir.”

Vetinary leans forward and, propping his elbows on his knees, presses his long fingers together and rests his chin on their steeple. “Would it be safe to say you estimate having a suspect in custody by early tomorrow morning, Commander?” He asks, staring thoughtfully at a point in the distance. His tone is enough of an echo of Vimes’ earlier answer to cause a bristling Vimes to retaliate through formality.

“Technically I have one in custody now, sir.”

Vetinari gives him a hard stare. He sighs, crushing the urge to light a cigar, and relaxes from his stiff posture to answer in a more honest tone. “Yes, I think we just might.”

“Very interesting timing. I have always been fascinated by the way events seem to slot themselves neatly to fill the gaps available.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever really noticed, sir.”

Vetinari looks up from under sharp brows without raising his head, eyes glinting. “Of course, the particularly interesting part is determining the hands doing the slotting.”

Vimes meets his gaze steadily. He declared his position in this years ago, with an axe. And he decided his response then, too.

“Sounds like politics to me, sir. ‘Fraid I’ve never got very far with ‘em – somehow I always seem to get caught up on the scale issue. When a person commits a crime it’s a crime, but when government commits it it’s policy.”

“A rather cynical, if nevertheless astute, view.”

Vimes doesn’t bother answering. He gathers up his papers from the chair, and glances at the door.

“If you need anything, sir, Igor can bring it – I’d stay away from anything with butter. I’ll leave orders that Drumknott be allowed to see you, if he chooses.” He stands, pushing both chairs back against the far wall. Vetinari nods.

“Your hospitality is appreciated, Commander.”

“It comes out of the city taxes, sir,” says Vimes, refusing the compliment; Vetinari gives him a bland look.

“Of course.” The Patrician straightens himself, a slow, graceful movement. “And if I were to ask you why you were doing all this?”

Vimes, at the door, feigns incomprehension. “All what, sir? It’s my job to interview prisoners.”

Vetinari gives a small, sharp smile. “I see, Sir Samuel. Then I must thank you for your diligence.”

There is absolutely nothing he can say to that without resorting to rudeness. Instead, Vimes gives the bastard a dirty look, and bangs for Igor. As he leaves, he sees Vetinari pulling himself back into the bunk out of the corner of his eye, for all the world ready for another kip.

Somehow, whenever things are all over, Vimes always wonders why he bothered in the first place. Vetinari always has everything arranged so neatly within the first ten minutes of his return that the idea of his not returning seems not only impossible now, but to always have been impossible.

And yet, the next time it happens, Vimes knows he'll do it all over again. He sighs, and heads back to his office to finish the traffic calming dockets.

END


End file.
